Nearly 60 members of the faculty and staff traveled last week to Washington, D.C., to celebrate Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin's National Blue Ribbon Award.
Blue Ribbon Ceremony in Washington
Nearly 60 members of the faculty and staff traveled last week to Washington, D.C., to celebrate Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin’s National Blue Ribbon Award.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos saluted the administrators and teachers of Blue Ribbon schools on their accomplishment and urged them to use their national recognition to fuel even greater achievement and innovation in their communities.
Excellence is not a destination,” she stressed. “Keep rethinking school and questioning everything.”
During their Blue Ribbon Celebration Tour of the nation’s capital, members of the NDCL group visited numerous museums, memorials, and historic sites, including the U.S. Capitol, Smithsonian Institution, Jefferson Memorial, Library of Congress, Newseum, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Martin Luther King Memorial, World War II Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Holocaust Museum and African-American History Museum.
During the award ceremony at the historic Omni Shoreham Hotel on Nov. 8, NDCL was the only high school in Ohio to be honored by the U.S. Department of Education. Nationwide, a total of 349 schools from 47 states plus the District of Columbia and the Department of Defense earned the 2018 Blue Ribbon Award.
“Throughout the trip, I think we realized how we’ve all worked together to reach this significant moment for our school,” explained PrincipalJoseph A. Waler. “And we continue to appreciate how blessed we are to be called together at this point in our lives and careers to provide the finest Catholic education for the 704 students we are so blessed to serve.”
Idea Pitch Competition
Senior Skylar Palisin and the team of juniors Dane Berschig and Jonathan Sharp snagged two of the top awards in Lakeland Community College’s Idea Pitch Competition last week.
In a format similar to the popular “Shark Tank” television series, the competition gave local college and high school students the opportunity to pitch their novel product ideas to a team of local entrepreneurs. Out of 40 proposals submitted, judges selected only 10, including three from NDCL, to compete for four awards during the final competition on Nov. 13.
Skylar won a runner-up prize of $500 for her pitch of Children Helped by Infrared Protection for Pools (CHIPP), a product designed to dramatically reduce children’s risk of drowning through the use of pyroelectric infrared sensor technology. CHIPP picks up motion to trigger an alarm when a child walks or crawls in and out of the sensor’s range.
Dane and Jonathan also won a runner-up prize of $500 for Coffee Time, an alarm clock and app combination to help reduce use of the snooze button by diffusing oils such as coffee, orange or mint at wake-up time and then requiring the user to solve a digital puzzle to turn off the alarm.
In addition to Dane, Jonathan and Skylar, NDCL students who made it to the finals included the team of sophomores Veronica Mekhel and Jenna Veri and junior Erin Gemmell. Science teacher Kelly Maduri facilitated the students’ participation in the competition.
